comfort zones

Still haven't seen the new Harry Potter movie. Today I decided to go to the Santa Claus parade with one of my nieces instead. Tomorrow, I have a whistle lesson with Karen Light; because of a longer commute now that we've moved, I've opted to do one lesson a month instead of biweekly.

Going back to Irish music sessions at the Tranzac this week. Looking back at my first session at the Tranzac, I'm reminded of how I felt going into the NCS Christmas party Friday.



I try to step outside of my comfort zone on a regular basis, doing something despite my personal fears and insecurities. Sometimes it doesn't turn out so well, but most times it does.

The fear of failure is usually a big stumbling block for many people. Sometimes it's a career-breaking one. Unless they're unusually lucky, for example, most freelance writers and artists have to get used to the sting of rejections and the occasional bad review, else they won't survive in their career longterm.

Stepping out of one's comfort zone also means being open to change, an uncomfortable notion to some people. Change usually means effort of some kind, even the mere effort of adjusting, and that's also a turn-off for many who would far rather have things continue the way they always have been.

So here's a survey question, for those willing to answer:

What's the last thing you did that forced you to step out of your comfort zone? (even a small step)

More squirrels and artsy/tech hybrids:

Thanks to Harald for sharing this memorable squirrel picture (warning! not for the weak-hearted!!)

And from my sibling-in-spirit, Scott Snyder:

"Arts / Tech Hybrid. That's me. :-)

My degree is in Theatre/ Sound Design. That's technical theatre - nearly the definition of artsy/hybrid all by itself. I spent a decade making noises for computer games, and now am Marketing VP for a large audio computer chip company, where I get to design products and generally be hip around the adults.

My entire career has been with one foot solidly in the arts (I was graphic artist for AFKN Television in South Korea at one time) and one foot in technology (I did that graphic art on a Quantel Paintbox, a very advanced graphics computer for it's time).

You are my sister. :-)"

More search engine skimpering

I've been sporadically continuing my search engine experiments. My Skimper page has dropped from #2 to #3 position because of a plug for Skimper.com. As of today, I'm removing the Skimper link from my left-hand navigation bar and seeing if that knocks me out of the #3 slot in Google results.

Hm, interesting. Just noticed that my Livejournal entry on Skimper is #5 because of content in the LJ comments section. Is this the result of some of Blatherings Google juice leaking into my LJ, or has my LJ generated its own small measure of juice?

I've also started to investigate how people find me in Google and other search engines. Here are just a few, as of Sunday morning:

talking edna doll: I'm in the #1 position in Google
Ginzu knives: #1 in AOL Search
BIKINI NIGHTMARES: #1 in Yahoo! search
limpy: #1 in AOL Search

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